Primary Sport Grant Funding 2015 - 16

Primary Sport Grant Funding - 2015/16

The government has continued to provide additional funding to improve provision of physical education (PE) and sport in primary schools for the 2015/2016 academic year. This funding is ring-fenced and therefore can only be spent on provision of PE and sport in schools.

Schools will spend the additional funding on improving their provision of PE and sport, but they will have the freedom to choose how they do this.

Some of the ways we can use our funding are:

Hiring of qualified sports coaches to work with teachers

Provide existing staff with training or resources to help them teach PE and sport more effectively

Introduce new sports or activities and encourage more pupils to take up sport

Supporting and involving the least active by running or extending school sports clubs, holiday clubs and Change4Life clubs

Our school’s PE curriculum is enhanced through the use of specialist coaches across Reception, and Key Stages 1 and 2 with pupils in EYFS having dance tuition in the summer term. Teachers are receiving specialist training, guidance and mentoring in the delivery of Sports and outdoor PE.

Extra-Curricular Sports

We are able to provide pupils across the school with many more opportunities to enjoy sports beyond the school day, with all activities free or heavily subsidised. We currently offer football, tag rugby, multisport, gymnastics, dance and basketball/netball. These are all delivered by qualified, specialist sports coaches.

Competitive Sports

Stoke Primary School believes in the positive benefits of competition in sports and we continue to develop greater emphasis on competitions and are steadily increasing participation and entries into sports competitions with other schools in a variety of sports and activities. This will culminate in our hosting a competition with other schools in the Summer term. There has a growing number of opportunities for pupils to take part in competition against other schools.

Outdoor Education

Each year Year 6 experience Archery, Rock climbing, and other outdoor activities at the AT7 Centre. Over the last few years school has also supported pupils in years 5 and 6 to have a four day residential experience in the summer holiday at Plas Dol-y-Moch in North Wales. This year the sport funding will be used to support more places. The social and personal development that takes place through staying away from home for a number of nights pupils take part in mountain walking, kayaking, mining, rock climbing, abseiling and orienteering.

These trips not only create lifelong memories but for some pupils provide them with the only opportunity they may have to experience these activities.

Impact

We feel the best way to measure the impact of the Sport Grant funding is to ask the children themselves and to that end both staff and Governors have conducted Pupil Voices to get their feedback.

It is pleasing to note that the responses have been overwhelmingly positive and all children from all age groups have expressed how much they have enjoyed the lessons and clubs with the specialist coaches, particularly the way they make it clear what they have done well and how they can move forward or improve. One child stated ‘They make me know how I can get better’.

They were all enthusiastic about the different skills that they had learnt throughout the year and other comments recorded were ‘It’s fun!’, ‘Exciting’ and ‘You can get fit’. Many of the children recognised that they had grown in confidence and that this confidence had spilled over into other areas of school life with comments such as ‘I believe I am confident’ and ‘Believe and Achieve (school motto) is true’.